


Black Night Veil

by Enna_of_the_Stars (CDSE)



Category: Original Work
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, Magic, Miscommunication, Original Story - Freeform, Past Relationships, Rekindling, Resolution, Short Story, Too Many Metaphors, complete for now, flowery language? can I call it that?, gratuitous descriptions im sorry, let's call it tangible word feeling idk, might continue might not, no beta we die like men, random work but man i think it came out ok, relationships, you really know I mean die like guys gals and all our nonbinary pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 08:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30002064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDSE/pseuds/Enna_of_the_Stars
Summary: Aren is a delivery man, running errands and generally hating life. He's lost everything all those years ago, and the bitterness still eats at him day by day. But tonight, on a delivery that sends chills up his spine and nibbles at his frost-tipped ears, Aren learns why he lost it all, and just maybe take it back. With force.
Relationships: Aren (Original Character)/Larente (Original Character)
Kudos: 1





	Black Night Veil

**Author's Note:**

> A random one-shot that just happened. Enjoy! May or may not keep writing this, not sure.

The sun dips low, burning into the distant horizon against purple ink clouds. The barren trees, stripped of the colorful warmth from just a few weeks ago, are stark silhouettes against the weathered white paint. When I finally pull up to the right address after searching for the past half hour, I am immediately overcome with a sense of unease, a slight foreboding that makes my heart pound and breath hitch.

The house itself is average sized. Nothing too big, nothing too small with faded numbers and a crooked mail box leaning heavily to the right. But something about it—perhaps the way the shuttered windows creak and swing in the frigid air, or maybe the way the stone chimney chokes out black smog fumes—ignites anxiety deep in my bones. The grounds are unkempt, shaggy in mis-constructed fences and misplaced stones. It’s like there’s blanket, some sort of wall, blocking this house from the ones back down the street. Just a turn before, the grass was greener, or at least as green as it could be in this season. The sky was brighter, but maybe that was because too much time had passed in my search for this place. The birds were louder, chittering and chattering against calls from parents to children still playing in the yards. But this street, devoid of laughter and voice, is silent and simultaneously overwhelmingly loud in its silence. A raven, perhaps crow, I’m too unnerved to really look, seems to stare down at me from its perch on the black smoke tree. It cocks its head to the left, eyes glimmering in the evening twilight. It caws.

Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I stop, gripping tightly. The shaking in my hands does not stop, but I ignore it. The seat belt seems to tighten and I choke in its grip. The belt unclicks and freedom is granted as I grab the delivery in the passenger seat, weighing the small box, judging if this is worth it. It is. I have to. I slam the car door shut, pull the delivery closer to my body for its strange persistent warmth, and make my way across the barren street.

The sun drops away, leaving just hints of twilight before even that loses faith and disappears into the ink black veil of night. The feeling of eyes on my back is unnerving and present and eats at me. So, I look around desperately from underneath my cap, yet I see nothing except for that cursed black winged creature on the branch. I’ve confirmed it, truly. It’s been staring at me since I drove onto the street, leaving the livelihood of the street just passed. Turning away, I breathe in, sort of strangled at this point, because god does it feel like there’s something clutching at my neck. I turn back, and the creature is gone. My heart, hammering, pelting against the stone-tired bones of multiple overtime shifts, stops for the first time since the start of this delivery. Shaking my head, the sights change and the house comes back into view. Ignore the bird, ignore the bird, ignore the bird. Ignore the bird. A mantra I repeat for only me, myself, and I.

A sharp, cutting caw strikes me. I nearly drop the box in my hands at the sudden intrusion of the previously somber silence. I fumble for it, catching it just before it hits the ground, stumbling in my steps on the uneven weed trodden stone path in the process. The box is clutched even tighter now. My hands only shake more, it feels as if my entire body is ready to rattle out of its flesh driving prison. The wooden stairs creak under my feet and I jump again at the suddenness, not expecting, was expecting the sound. The cool air fogs and puffs from my abated breath, but still, I move to knock on the door.

And I do. The door shudders with the weight of my knocks. It gives up what seems to be at least a decade’s worth of pollen, dust, and ash. Taking a step back, wide eyed and wholly unsure of what the hell I was doing here, because I’m going to—I’m going—

The thought stops there. As does my heart. As does my breath. As does everything in the world. It all spins to a stop, as the glittering starlight strikes something shiny in the corner of my eye. I look to the left, towards the aging wooden deck and the—

“Oh god.” It’s more of a weak escape of my soul, rather than tangible words. The weight of the world rests on my shoulders and presses down, hard. My knees give way for it, pliant under the pressure. I’m a mess, crumbled and broken and breaking on the wooden floor. Just to the side, there lies that crystal. It glows, ethereal in the veil blanketing the world in its sudden stop.

The world starts up again without me, when the thump of heavy footsteps from inside the house flickers some sort of awareness in the back of my mind. The old and tired door struggles itself open. In its haste, it sweeps more of that ash and dust and memories, long, thrown away memories, into the house. I blink when an awkward cough splits like thunder through the raining silence. I turn, looking up at the man that stands before me.

He’s tall, shrouded in a black… thing. It drapes over his shoulders and floats back and forth, back and forth, sometimes catching the moonlight and glittering its dark secrets before settling back to a void. Drooping locks of curly black hair, long and cascading in weeping waterfalls over the dip of his barely visible collarbone, puff and sigh with each breath. Pale, almost translucent white skin shimmers and both disappears and reappears in the pall of the dark interior of the house. He stares down at me unblinking. I stare right back, taking in the blue eyes, really almost gray. Something flickers in them, just as something flickers in the back of my mind. He moves forward, barely leaving the threshold of the house. He’s not wearing shoes, I realize, before a hand swims into my vision. The pale and thin wrist is delicate wire silk as it wraps around my arm. But, like spider silk, it is delirious and fake in its delicacy.

I’m pulled to stand, with striking, yet expected strength. I blink, still not really processing the who, the when, the _now_. The hand doesn’t leave my arm, but the shroud of black moves closer, and I too, am shrouded. The warmth is surprising, shocking.

Fuck, because what the hell.

I close my eyes and lean in as the other arm of the man wraps its way around my waist and pulls me in flush to his chest. _Familiar_.

* * *

“Aren.” He breathed, close to my ear. His arms are around me, holding me tight as the sunlight drips into the crack of the curtain and onto the bed. I hum, lazy, too tired from last night, too tired to do anything really. But still, I turn to him. He smiles, underneath those black curls that always seem to be in his way, with well, the way he’s always pushing them to the side. He looks down at me in his arms, smiles wide and pearly white. “Hey, sleepy.”

“Hey yourself,” I mumble right back. It’s mostly word mush into his collarbone, which I’ve taken quite the fancy of. I can hear him breathing, his heart thumping steadily away. He breathes in to say something, and holds his breath. Something is wrong, I can tell, after spending so many years by his side. Something is eating at his heart and mind and soul.

“I wanted to show you something today,” He said. “It’s important.”

That wakes me up fully. I untangle myself from him, he pulls back too. Suddenly, there’s a gap between us, palpable and tentative and possibly dangerous.

“Everything okay, love?” I ask. He doesn’t reply but merely looks away, moving to get clothed. His back is smaller than I’ve ever seen it.

“Just… Just wanted to tell you something.” His voice is softer than anything I’ve ever heard from him before. But it doesn’t fool me, he’s scared and I don’t know why and that breaks me. Still, I turn around too, and now we are back facing back. Pulling on some pants, a shirt, something to go over it, before moving to his side of the master bedroom, I stop just a hair width’s breath away. He’s still dressing, slow and methodical like always, but his hands are shaking and that’s what scares me the most.

“Hey,” I said. He doesn’t look at me, dead set on continuing to fumble at the buttons of his shirt, clumsy and obviously on edge.

“Hey.” This time, his hands stop, and I take that as my queue to move in. I carefully pry his freezing hands from the buttons and instead do them up for him. When I reach the top one, just under his chin, I look up and we lock eyes. His are pearly, glistening. I stand and let my hands cup his cheeks tenderly, thumbs wiping at the first not-quite tear.

“Sorry,” He manages to choke out.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to be so scared, love.”

“I just—” His shaking hands come up to grab mine and they still shake, even as the warmth from me bleeds into him as if breathing fire and life into his limbs.

“I just,” He tries again. “I’m scared you’ll hate me.”

I pause at that, thinking back to all the times before. Of weird occurrences, of strange accidents, of the many, many things that were should-have-been or could-have-been. Things that went wrong, somehow, someway, without really ever understanding why. But then, I remember that fire the burns bright within. That ignites passion and ferocity to protect the man before me. I smile reassuringly, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Not going to stop loving you.”

He finally closes his eyes, letting himself lean into the caress of my hands. The unshed tears breaking free and fluttering to the ground, even as I tried to wipe them up and make them disappear.

* * *

I blink and we’re back. I’m back and he’s back and, _fuck_ this is happening, _fuck_ —he pulls away. The gap between us is starker than ever, deeper than ever. I look up at him. His eyes are soft, gentle. I open my mouth, he inhales sharply. Both of us, _we_ are here.

“I’m sorry,” He says first.

I can’t really muster anything except a strangled peep in reply as I blink droplets dusted by the stardust night sky. He wipes my tears this time.

“I’m sorry.” He says again. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to just—”

Dry mouthed, my self comes back to me, and in an instant, the white-hot anger sears into the air dripping lava and spite and desperation.

“You. Left. Me.” I practically spit out the words. “You left. Disappeared. Gone.” At this point, I’m not sure what’s more surprising, the not-rain falling to the ground despite the cloudless sky, or the way my heart stutters with each breath but still yearns. _Yearns._

“Please,” He starts, “Let me show you why.” He pulls back farther, through the still doorway, into the darkness of the shrouded interior of the house.

“Why the hell should I listen to you? You’re the one who left! You just up and disappear one day and never come back and now you think that just because this,” I gruffly gesture at the, well everything, encompassing both of us. My heart screams the opposite of everything I say. “Just because this, this, meeting or whatever, happened doesn’t mean I ever wanted you ba—”

The crystal beside the door starts glowing. It floats from where it’s lain on the aching wooden floor and moves to come between us. It flashes, pulsating between bright brilliant white and bleeding red, before finally dimming altogether and fading black. It clatters the ground, spinning.

“No!” It’s a whisper. I turn to look at him. His blue eyes have turned silver and distant, and his face almost disappears, with how stark and ghostly it has become. His black long curls flutter and brush off as smoke forms where he stands with his… his shroud fluttering with it. “No.” He almost pleads, collapsing onto the floor, scrambling for the black crystal.

He looks back up at me, after confirming the now still crystal moves no longer. His eyes have shifted to gold, but there’s fear in them, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. He lunges forward, grabs me by the arm, dragging me into the house. In my shock, I don’t fight back, and the door swing shut behind me with a definitive slam. It locks itself, despite the door not having an electronic lock. The rest of the house too, seems to spring to life. Lights start flickering on, I realize they’re really little flames and candles, than a modern light. My shoes untie themselves and as I’m still dragged further and further into the depths of the house, two steps and my shoes come off on their own. They stow away neatly into the little shoe rack by the door. I too, am now barefoot.

We enter a long and thin hallway lined with doors and doors and more doors that open and shut at random intervals. Paintings hanging on the walls move with life and breathe with vitality. The flames flicker, casting dark and faint and long and short shadows all across the room in a sort of dizzying nonsense.

The door at the end of the hallway opens up, and he pulls me through it, firmly locking it behind us with an old-fashioned metal cast key. He fumbles a bit with some muttered words, and I watch as the door suddenly bleeds. Gold lines curving, carving into the wooden flesh appear and disappear before he stops muttering, and they stop.

“They know.” Is all he says. “And I can’t—I can’t let them hurt! They, now they know and they won’t forgi—” He stops there. Closes his mouth firmly shut, but eyes suddenly burning molten gold and determined. He marches past me, careful not to actually push me out of the way and starts ransacking the room with fervor. Dumbfounded, I sort of move to sit even though I don’t realize I’m nowhere near a chair; to my surprise a chair lumbers up behind me just as I sit down. I don’t even register it; my eyes are focused on him. His brilliant golden eyes glowing in the dim shadow cast room of flickering flames and fire, burn bright. His black curls seem to move with a life of their own, picking things up, and moving them as he does the same to a random assortment of things around the room.

Parchment, god is that really parchment? Quill pen, ink bottle, a few decks of cards, black and dipped with gold. The entire set of books living on the shelves around the room start shuddering, moving, flying into the open canvas sack that he was throwing everything else in. Pouch after leather pouch of miscellaneous items that I can’t really identify follow suit. A few more crystals, these I don’t recognize, unlike the one he was so afraid of from moments before. Of the one that he had shown me all those years ago, that had then, blinked that brilliant blinding white and warning cautious yellow. I recall, it never ended bled black that time, it just flashed and flashed and flashed until he was gone and everything we’ve ever had, gone.

"What,” I start. My lips are dry so I lick them before trying again. “What’s happening?”

He doesn’t stop, he’s actually _packing_ , I realize. Things are still flying and moving on their own. But he does stop, eventually, once everything is fully gone and in the canvas bag which shrinks and shrinks until its nothing but small canvas pouch no bigger than my palm. He grabs the bag; it disappears in a little poof and shower of golden sparks. He sits down, and another chair, appearing out of nowhere, shoots out to ensure he actually sits down instead of falling to the floor. The black shroud that cloaks him seems to swallow him in its gaping maw of void and nothingness. Even his limbs are eaten up, until its just the peaks I can see of the tips of his ears and his nose through the curtain of his hair, now messier than ever.

“They know.” He says. I shake my head, not really understanding.

“They know about you. I was stupid, they always say to never tell and I put you in danger and it was stupid that I showed you, I should’ve never showed you, shouldn’t have ever told you shouldn’t—” He cuts himself off with a strangled inhalation, because now, I realize, I see, golden tears dripping from his eyes. They fall in perfect pearls, landing on his shroud of black and splattering like stars against the night sky. I wait. But that doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t screaming and thrashing and crying for my mind to move, my body to move and wrap him up in my arms.

“They took me away because I showed you. I was young and stupid and I didn’t want to hide it from you! They always say to never, never show _this_ ,” He sort of, weakly gestures at the room and the situation. “Never show outsiders, they say, but I—” He chokes back a sob. He continues. “I thought you would be my forever. I wanted you to be my forever! You were, you _are_ , I know it!” The tears don’t stop, but he lifts his head and looks at me with what I finally, finally recognize as the same look from that night he disappeared.

He didn’t leave me. He was taken from me. This… this understanding dawns on me like the rising sun, moving in tandem with the beating of my heart and the coursing white-hot anger that had simmered away in the panicked run, but now burns brighter than ever.

“You didn’t leave, did you.” I finally manage to speak my words, tongue heavy, sizzling anger steady and burning in my veins, but I don’t let it seep into my voice. He shakes his head, unable to say anything. “You could’ve come back, but you didn’t. You were scared for me.” I say this not as a question, but more of a statement, because really, I think I see it now.

He nods in affirmation.

God I’m going to punch whoever the fuck _they_ were.

He suddenly jumps out of the chair, eyes blown wide and gold shrinking to golden rings instead of pure color where blue should have been. His pupil thins, and thins, and thins, and thins until it’s nothing put a sharp vertical line. They’re beautiful.

“We have to go,” He says in a whisper. In his hand appears a thin black stick, a wand. He reaches out for me, but doesn’t force me, not like moments before. I stare back at him. At his dripping gold eyes and smoke hair and shrouded night veil and shoeless ghostly feet. I feel the anger of ten years of loss. Of what could have been. What should have been. My grief turns brighter, bitter, better in its strength as it evolves. It’s no longer grief because I know he didn’t leave me. I know he didn’t. He was taken, and he was afraid, alone by himself and hurting.

I was going to kill _them._ For hurting him. For hurting me. For hurting us.

For a brief moment, I think to my life, my current one. Compared to what it is, to what it was—could have been… Yeah, I’m going to kill them.

I reach out for him. Our hands meet in the middle and yes, this is what _home_ was. We disappear in a shower of golden sparks against the backdrop of a black night veil.


End file.
